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Senate GOP presser: Military pensions, Obamacare, debt limit

But as a snowstorm bears down on Washington and Congress prepares for a long Presidents Day recess, Democrats are warming to the House’s pension plan, which would offset its $7 billion cost by extending for a year the impact of sequestration on mandatory Medicare spending.

“There is support among a number of Senate Democrats to take up and pass the House-passed COLA fix as soon as tomorrow,” a senior Democratic aide said Tuesday evening. “With no other passable options on the horizon, there is a realization that veterans shouldn’t be asked to wait any longer and an expectation that bipartisan support should coalesce in the coming hours.”

For their part, Republicans are balking at the prospect of passing a bill with no offset.

Earlier in the day, there appeared to be no easy path to final passage for competing proposals in the House and Senate to undo a provision just about every lawmaker detests. Even Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) said he wasn’t involved in any talks to find a bipartisan offset.

Both parties also appear to be using votes on the issue to provide political cover for members who voted for December’s bipartisan budget deal, which put the unpopular pension cuts in place, amid a backlash from powerful advocacy groups for service members and veterans.

And it remains to be seen whether they’ll actually resolve the issue this week.

“We’re not yet in a period of normal legislative action,” Senate Republican Whip John Cornyn of Texas said of the election-year political calculus facing both parties. “I don’t think the ‘Age of Aquarius’ is about to break out with peace, love and understanding.”

The pension cuts caught many members by surprise when they were put forward in December as part of the bipartisan budget deal negotiated by the leaders of the House and Senate Budget committees, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.).

Before the deal was even signed into law, members in both parties were pledging to undo the cuts, which would slow the growth in pension cost-of-living adjustments for working-age military retirees.

Under the budget agreement, cost-of-living adjustments for military retirees under the age of 62 would be pegged to the rate of inflation minus 1 percentage point. Once they turned 62, they’d receive full cost-of-living increases tied to the rate of inflation. The provision, however, doesn’t kick in until late next year, providing plenty of time for Congress to undo it.

Republicans and Democrats have put forward more than a dozen proposals to reverse the cuts but remain divided on how to pay for their plans. And some Democrats say their plan shouldn’t have to be paid for at all.

“I’ve said it a hundred times today, and I’ll say it again: No, I don’t think we need to pay for this,” said Sen. Mark Begich (D-Alaska). “These guys have already paid. We made a promise, we need to keep it.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) countered: “I shouldn’t have to pick between doing justice to the military retirees and doing justice for future generations — that’s a false choice.”